MR. CHAMBERLAIN ON HE MAKING OF A SPEECH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11783, 12 October 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

MR. CHAMBERLAIN ON HE MAKING OF A SPEECH.

I n.wE been making among a number oj representative men at the Senate, and ii the pulpit, inquiries on the art of speechmaking, my two leading questions beinf somewhat as follows : —

" What is your own method in the making of a speech?" " Speaking from experience, what advice would you give to a novice who sought your aid in the art of public speaking?" Mr. Chamberlain happens to have discussed the subject with some fulness in an address he gave to the Birmingham and Edgbaston Debating Society on the occasion of its jubilee a few years "ago, and to this address he referred me when I put these questions to him. The Secretary of State for the Colonies mentioned that" he joined the society in 1854, when eighteen years of age, and continued a member till 1863, during which period he always took an active pare in the debates. Mr. Chamberlains first speech was delivered on the night of his election to the society, in opposition to a resolution. "That the "character and conduct of Oliver Cromwell do not entitle him to the admiration of posterity." "No good argument," Mr. Chamberlain declared at the outset, "was ever perfectly rendered without serious labour, and if it be the fact, as I believe it*is, as we have been told by a great French writer, that true eloquence consists in saying all that is proper and nothing more—it is the latter part of the condition which is most difficult, and more time will be taken in pruning away redundancies, in abandoning all that is not pertinent to the subject, than in preparing the language which is actually to be used. ... " I imagine that the experience of all of us will suggest instances in which even good speakers would have spoken better if they had adopted a little more compression. That means trouble, that means pain." In Mr. Chamberlain's opinion John Bright was the greatest orator of his generation, and, having regard to the personal association which existed between them for many years, there is much interest in the account which he gives of Bright'* method: —

"Bright took infinite pains in the preparation of his speeches, giving even as much as a week or more to the elaboration of his thoughts : and he told me in regard to his method that his object was in the first place to grasp himself clearly the central idea and main principle that he wished to impress upon his hearers, then to state in the simplest terms he could find, and, while avoiding every superfluous word, every unnecessary argument, to reinforce the" text by such illustrations and arguments as suggested themselves to his mind. ' and so,' he said, 'I hope that when I sit down my listeners will have understood and will retain the main thing, the main idea, that has been the object of my discourse.' Well," continued" Mr. Chamberlain, " it is not all of us who can draw the bow of Ulysses. We cannot hope to imitate Mr. Bright in his highest flights, but we may all follow his example in grudging no labour and no time in order to make clear to others the truth as it appears to us."—Frederick Dolman, in the Strand for September.